An online journal of the nightly (and daily) nonsense endured by a (former) bouncer at two of New York's most popular nightclubs.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Background (Cont'd)

HarperCollins heard (from me) that I’d finally decided to start promoting the book, so they told me to embed the ad you’ll see on the right side of the site. In the three-plus years I’ve been writing on this site, there’s never been any advertising here. Shit, I’ve never even made a dime off this fucking blog, unless you count the advance I received for the book – which, while a welcome addition to my bank account, was not exactly a life-changing event.

So, fuck it. I’ll put this one up because it’s advertising something for me, and not some bullshit Google Ad-Sense deal plugging shit nobody needs. God only knows what their keyword match software would come up with for me considering the subject matter I’ve covered over the years.

As always, you can still order the book on Amazon if you’re so inclined.

Back to the history…

Jim Hughes wasn’t looking for any bouncers for his own places when I called, because he was in the process of selling one bar and converting the other into a restaurant. Because it was me calling, however, he was willing to make a few calls of his own to help me out, and I had myself a bouncing job in the city by the end of that week. As it turned out, one of Jim’s friends had a hand in running the security crews at a couple of places in Manhattan, remembered me from some work I’d done in the past, and hired me immediately. Relatively speaking, I got lucky.

Jim had known me since I was a kid. Like most people in my life, he was well aware of the fact that I was known to be “a little off” at times. He also knew me as a guy who showed up on time, never called in sick, ran to fights like a man possessed and, most importantly, wouldn’t steal a dime from anyone. My reputation in the little pond was solid.

None of that mattered when I started working in the city, however, because the job wasn’t even remotely similar to anything I’d done in the business. I’d never worked at a club before. All my bouncing experience had been in bars, so the “scene” was completely foreign to me. I’d never even been to a club as a customer. I knew nothing about any of it – the DJs, the promoters, the doormen, the “club kids” and all the rest. My first night of work was the first time I’d ever set foot in a real New York nightclub, and the whole thing was one big, fat, fucking sensory overload.

So I started writing about it, though not in blog form at first. Most of my initial “entries” were emails to friends of the “you wouldn’t believe what the fuck I saw last night” variety. After a few weeks of these, someone told me what a blog was, and I created this site and started posting here – sitting at the same desk and working at the same computer I’m using right now.

After work some nights, like I’m doing right now.

I was hardly thinking about a book back then, believe me. I didn’t consider myself a “writer,” and neither, most likely, did anyone else. What I really wanted was to get all my material in one place, and maybe try and use it to get laid or something if I could. And yes, that is exactly what I had in mind.

That’s pretty much why we do anything, is it not?

I posted here for eighteen months without anyone other than people I knew reading anything I wrote. For well over a year, the sole purpose of the blog was to provide a few of my friends with shit to talk about at the bar on the Friday nights I didn’t work.

“Hey, did that Guido really rip his shirt off and challenge you to a dance fight?”